


Parallax

by andromeda_starline



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Corpo V (Cyberpunk 2077), F/M, Female Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Character Death, Netrunner V, Post Game, Post-Canon, Soft Johnny Silverhand, Soft V, Swearing, The Sun Ending, contrary to belief love can be found in night city, cyberspace, hand holding is my kink, i'm so soft, my V is so soft that's just how it is, spirituality, there's a couple OCs in here but they aren't important they just push the story along, whatever happens in cyberspace stays in cyberspace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28397568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromeda_starline/pseuds/andromeda_starline
Summary: 'guess it’s like this — sure passage of time happens here but it doesn’t feel like out there. we all move forward but here it feels like we move slower.''what so while we’re moving at the same speed i look like i’m moving farther ahead?''guess so more or less'' you ever get used to it? feeling like you’re not moving forward?''don’t have much of a choice.'--V discovered her first love at 13, discovered her second at 27. A story of how those two loves are interwoven within of fabric of her life.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Comments: 5
Kudos: 61





	Parallax

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally planning on making a fun pwp and it somehow merged into this angsty as heck story. I'm sorry I'm soft lol.
> 
> This is post-game so be warned there could be spoilers here. I tried to keep it mostly general but read at your own caution. Also, I'm sure I def got some info wrong, still getting used to the world of cyberpunk so if I got some stuff wrong...whoops!
> 
> My V is a corpo netrunner build and this fic is heavily banking on that. Also as mentioned in my other fic, my V is named Valeria bc it's just a bit cooler than Valerie. Just so you know what you're getting into :)

* * *

Valeria Ramos first jacked into the Net when she was 13.

At that time she gained a hefty obsession with netrunners. They were pioneers of a new frontier and she wanted to be just like them. She saved her allowance for five months and in secret, bought herself a cybermodem. Her parents would kill her if she knew she had it so she stuffed it as far under her bed as she could in a shoebox. Every night when she brought it out, she made sure to close her window curtains and closed her door. She figured out how to hack it so it couldn’t open by anyone but her. Still, she was as quiet as a mouse while she set it up and turned it on. 

The outside world shifted away from her and the Net buzzed to life. A world of binary code that she could touch. It was scary and overwhelming, and intoxicating all at once. Every moment of spare time she spent in its pixelated landscapes. She read everything she could on netrunnning — of Rache Bartmoss, Spider Murphy, of Alt Cunningham. From traveling through different regions to her first BBS hack, the neurons in her brain hummed in euphoria. 

Within this world, Valeria discovered her first love. 

* * *

Archived Conversation: Valeria and Chrissy Preston 

Chrissy: heyyy valley girl!!!  
Valeria: what do you want  
Chrissy: oh don’t be like that! you can’t still be pissed at me, look i didn’t know that you liked hiro, he was a total jerk anyway, he wouldn’t even deserve you.  
Valeria: easy for you to say with his dick in your hand.   
Chrissy: mad harsh val, no need to be nasty.   
…  
Chrissy: anyways, we didn’t do anything i swear, broke up with him right away after he boasted about he was planning on joining the tyger claws when he graduated. soooooo lame.   
Valeria: ….fr?  
Chrissy: yes!!!! like, scouts honor valley girl.   
Valeria: ok. either way i know u messaged me for something.   
Chrissy: ugh fine! look, i wanted to hang out. have some girl time. shopping and ramen?  
Valeria: but????  
Chrissy: do you think you could _‘find’_ some eddies for us? please! i won’t get my allowance for another week so i’m strapped for cash, but if u get some i can convince my sister to drive us out to the GIM! what do you say??   
Valeria:…ok but don’t think this will make us even, you still owe me one for this.  
Chrissy: you got it valley girl! :D i totes owe you one!!! see you soon?  
Valeria: ok pick me up in an hour. 

* * *

By 15, Valeria was running hacking side jobs in-between school. Loving, but absent parents gave her the opportunity to get away with things. Things like skimming a couple of eddies off the top of some corpo bigwig’s pockets. 

She purposely shied away from Arasaka. She saw the way her _Abuelo_ would look at her sometimes. Arasaka intel man that he was, gave her stares that screamed he knew exactly what she was doing. Those days she would go up to her room, the guilt building up inside her. _Tomorrow, I’ll stop_ , she would tell herself each night, as she prepped herself to enter the Net.

It was easy to continue, however, especially when she had her friends to egg her on. “Come on Valley Girl,” they would plead in their sweetest voices. “I really need that A!” or “I just want to know if he said anything about me, can you check his messages?”

In the end, girls will be girls. What’s wrong with a little bit of crime so long as you keep quiet? She promised that when the time came, after graduation perhaps, she would hang up her netrunning suit for good. 

Problem was, Valeria had a bad habit of lying to herself. 

* * *

Archived Conversation: Valeria and Armand Ramos

Armand: mija. ¿estás bien?  
Valeria: si, abuelo. está bien. finals are rough pero, i’m holding in there!  
Armand: i take it you are keeping out of trouble?  
Valeria: no need to worry about me. since when do you take me for a troublemaker? :) 

* * *

While attending university, when Valeria — or ‘V’ she was going by V now — was 20, she almost died. It’s a good thing she didn’t. Talk about being an embarrassment to the Ramos name — dying in some shitty night club in Mexico. She could imagine the scolding her _Máma_ would have given her. Uni opened her mind to new possibilities, new vices, and introduced her to new friends.

One being a fixer. 

Her job was simple. She was on a vacation with friends, and her fixer needed intel from the Atlantis region. Sure, she could have accessed it back home, albeit a lot slower and not as pristine as this. This way she was at the source — pure and lovely code waiting for her. Just a quick jack into an access port while the masses were getting sweatier and drunker by the second on the dance floor. When done she would be swimming in cash. She desperately needed it after her parents made ‘the ultimatum.’ They would pay for her school and she was on her own for the rest. 

The plan did work, for the most part. She found a way into the back rooms, to the owner’s office. She got her info preem and proper and walked back into the blaring nightclub. She thought she had gotten away with it. That was until hands were gripping her shoulder, spinning her around. 

V was strong but not ‘three guys ganging up at once’ strong. She struggled against their grip trying to get away. When the knife came out she thought she was a goner, bracing for the impact of steel on flesh. Before that could happen, a strong arm stopped the knife in its tracks, bending the owner's arm back until he dropped it. V used the opportunity to elbow the guy behind her in his face. Her savior, a boyfriend of one of her friends, was like a whirlwind, landing blow after blow on her assailants. Once an exit path opened up he rushed her out of the nightclub, “Let’s go _chica_!” He shouted as they ran as far as they could to lose sight of the bar and her aggressors. 

“Shit,” she said, trying to catch her breath in a back alleyway. _Never again,_ she thought. When she got back to Night City she was going to hand the info in and cut all ties. _This is my last job._

She looked up at the man, Jackie? That was his name, right? “You really saved me back there. Those gonks would have zeroed me if you didn’t step in.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, clapping a hand on her shoulder, “Anything for an _amiga_.” 

“Well, I owe you one,” she smiled, as they walked back to the hotel she and her friends were staying at.

V never got the chance to pay back that favor in earnest. 

* * *

Archived Conversation: V and Jackie Welles

V: really fucked this one up huh?  
V: thought this could be the last one for a while… have enough eddies to lay low for a bit, just live life, but —  
V: fuck….  
V:...  
V: I have the last voicemail you left on my phone. i — fuck. every once in a while I give it a listen. It’s nice to hear your voice.   
V: seems like you had a real habit of saving my stupid fucking life. if i could go back. if i could just —   
V:…i’m just..so fucking sorry hermano. 

* * *

At 27, V’s entire world shattered. Her job was terminated and all her assets seized. Six years of work down the drain. Jackie was gone, and there was the matter of the _tapeworm_ that once infested inside her brain, and its slow attempt to kill her. 

She spent weeks thinking she was on death’s door, a race against the clock with that stupid gonk in her head. 

She couldn’t deny Johnny awakened something within her. His presence felt the same to her as her first forays into the net — scary, overwhelming, and intoxicating all at once. Johnny's presence felt like getting hit with a layer ICE — a biting sensation flowing through her neural pathways. Two souls blazing within one vessel. 

He was gone now; only she remained. She thought she would return to normal with only one entity inside her brain, but it felt like a piece was missing. Johnny leaving felt less like a goodbye and more like a fraction of her died — like he was cauterized out of her. Somehow, when she woke up each morning, alone in her apartment, the world felt a bit more gray. 

Her mom told her once about the string of fate. A love story about two souls tied together by a singular invisible thread. Regardless of their location, circumstances, or even their timelines, their destinies intertwined. No matter how stretched or tangled, the thread wouldn’t break. V thought that was all bullshit now. There’s only so much tension a piece of thread can take. 

V turned to her dear friend, the Net, to cope.

* * *

_“Just promise me one thing asshole,” V said to him near the end. Deep in cyberspace with the avatar of Alt looming over, she grabbed his hand as he walked towards the tower of light. She felt her eyes well up with tears. Each one that rolled down her cheek pricked at her. They felt like static as they fell.“You won’t forget me.”_

_He squeezed her hand back, she saw the hint of a smile on his face, but the feeling of pain swelled. He told her to never stop fighting._

_As he faded away and she fell through the channels of cyberspace back into her body, she chanted that in her mind._

_Never stop fighting._

* * *

She really thought that she would die. That her body was too far beyond recognizing her and after six months, it would start to reject her little by little. When she shot back into her body, she did so with the intent to tie up loose ends, get affairs in order, stand on the edge of the Pacific ocean one last time. Then, six months passed with no degradation of her body at all. She didn’t know exactly how much longer she had, but she’d gone two rotations around the earth and she was still kicking.

She cut her hair to her shoulders. It made her feel lighter; like chopping off a dead weight. She spent more time with others. Weekly coffee visits with Mama Welles. Visits to Jackie’s _ofrenda_. Had tarot readings with Misty. She visited Panam when the Aldecaldos were in the area. She kept Judy’s place neat and tidy for when she returned — which she did after a year and a half on the road. 

At 29, she was doing better. 

That also included the fact that she was currently in a maybe, sort-of long-distance relationship, with a certain lost in cyberspace rockerboy. 

Who would have thought? 

It happened one day out of the blue, while poking around the Net. Maybe she got too close to the Blackwall or he was roaming around carelessly as he was want to do. In the morning there was an encrypted message on her computer. V took quick action to break the encryption and was welcomed by a simple message. 

* * *

_‘v. you there?’_

* * *

Archived Conversation: V and Johnny Silverhand

V: this is some sort of prank right?   
Johnny: ’fraid not princess  
V: but you’re deep net — johnny this doesn’t make any sense.   
Johnny: that’s your problem isn’t it v? always tryin’ to make sense of everything. can never accept what’s right in front of you.  
V: alt… she absorbed you, shouldn’t you be part of her—data or code or whatever?  
Johnny: think i’m that hard to get rid of? dagger to the heart v. fuck  
V: can it drama king….where are you now?  
Johnny: here, there and everywhere  
V: shut up, I mean really?  
Johnny: dunno. somewhere outside the blackwall, just dickin’ around.   
V: i’m jacking into the net don’t try to stop me.   
Johnny: jesus christ v, can you live a sec without having a fuckin’ deathwish?  
V: i’ll be there soon. wait up for me?

* * *

The first time Johnny kissed V it felt like the wind got knocked out of her. 29 years was a long time to wait for a blockbuster movie kiss like that. It was funny. This time she felt like the tapeworm, outside her body, weaseling into cyberspace. Here, Johnny had full autonomy — she was the guest. 

He pushed her against a wall composed of jagged pixels, taking her mouth in his with a sense of hunger and desperation. Boys never kissed V like this. 

Well, mostly. 

She’d been pushed up against a wall more than once by some gonk who only wanted to feel her up. Of course, Johnny was also feeling her up, she didn’t expect less. What was different was the delivery. The way his hands methodically took her, forceful but gentle. His hands cupping the sides of her face and he drew her in close. Johnny definitely kissed more people in his lifetime than she could even imagine. The way he took her though, touched her, gave her the feeling that she was the only one who mattered to him. Made her feel holy.

Foreheads touching, breathing each other in, V wondered if this was a dream. A cruel joke formed by her mind and she’ll soon wake up again alone in her bed. A hand grasps her's and it centered her back to reality. This is real, this is now. Somehow they seemed to find each other again. As if tied together by a string.

_Somewhere buried deep in her mind, she heard her mother chide her. She clicked her tongue like she would do when V was a teenager and did something stupid. She would talk to V in a lilting voice, a wry smile forming on the edges of her mouth._

_“Mama’s always right.”_

* * *

“Don’t think you’re going to get much information Misty,” V said while offering her left hand to the woman sitting across from her. “Hand’s all fucked up from the mods, Not much of a palm left to read.” 

“It’s ok,” Misty said sweetly. “there’s more than enough information here. Besides, Vik gave me a reference of your hand from before, it’s just nice to have that touch connection when reading.” Misty looked at V’s hand, mapping out the lines on her palm. 

“You have a very strong life line, see here?” V looked down to see the line closest to her thumb. Misty traced it with her index finger in a way that sent a shiver down V’s spine, “it’s long and round, a good line to have. It means you are full of vitality. You have a love of adventure.” 

V couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle, “Adventurous, no shit?”

Misty continued, “These two here,” she pointed to the two lines above her life line. One connected to it and went out in a straight line across her palm. The other above was long curved upwards. “These are your head and heart lines.” 

V listened intently waiting for Misty to continue. She never marked herself as a mystical person before. To V, life was something to analyze. Science and code were her bibles, but the way Misty described life — figured her out with tarot or chakra alignments — something about it felt right with her. Everything clicked.

“Your head line,” Misty continued, “shows your personality. Your’s shows that you seek order. You want things done by the book.” 

“Jeez Misty, feel like you know my whole life story,” V deadpanned. She wasn’t wrong though, V craved order and stability. She used to think working at Arasaka would give that to her. She learned early on that nothing in Night City was ever stable. She would be fighting for stability for the rest of her life. “The last line, heart? What about that?”

Misty traced over the line. It curved upward on her palm, starting from the edge of her hand and ending right between her index and middle fingers. “A mighty heart line. You have a great ability to love. Means basically you are in love with love.” Misty spoke in that genuine way that tugged at V’s heartstrings. 

“God, you’re lovely Misty,” V smiled, “no pun intended.” This wasn’t the first time she said that to her and she meant it every single time. “Nice for once for someone to tell me I’m not a complete fuckup.” 

“We all have our things to deal with V. Doesn’t make us less human, or less beautiful.” 

V looked down, stared at the lines of her hand. “What about this one right here?” She pointed to a line right above her heart line, situated between it and her pinky. It was easy to miss unless you took a second glance. The line was short, barely visible, arching downwards to where it just touched her heart line. 

Misty looked down, squinted at her hand, and ever so gently traced it. She paused for a moment in a way that made V cock her head to the side. “It’s — your marriage line,” Misty said bluntly. 

“And?” V gulped, “What does that mean exactly?” 

Misty stared at V with a look on her face that told V she wouldn’t like what she had to say. 

“You can say it Misty,” V looked directly at her, “I can take it.” Misty was the only one who really knew what was going on. The others had some sort of inkling. They knew about V’s connection with Johnny, their past, and their strange present. Only Misty knew about V’s true feelings. It was next to impossible to hide it from her. It could have been Misty’s psychic intuition or the fact that when V looked into her eyes she couldn’t help but spill her guts. It was nice to have someone to talk to about him. Someone who wouldn’t think that maybe she spent a bit too much time in the Net. Unlike others, Misty believed a happy ending was possible with the untouchable.

“Just like what it sounds, it's a line about relationships. Your line, it dips down, touches your marriage line. Most people say that means that your partner is doomed to die before you.” 

V inhaled sharply at Misty’s words, “Oh,” _of course._ “Can never get a break huh?” V said dryly, the words getting caught in her throat. 

“V,” Misty smiled, sadness behind those puppy dog eyes. She held her own palm up — it bared an eerily familiar mark to V’s. “Happens to the best of us.” 

V took the other girl’s hand in her own and forced out a smile. She shared a kinship with Misty. Jackie was right about her, she was a special gal. 

“Don’t worry too much about it V. You know the weirdest thing about palms?” Misty said as she turned her head towards V. “After a while, the lines change. Who knows maybe 10 years from now, your reading will be completely different.” 

V didn’t think that would end up being true, but when she looked into Misty’s eyes, she believed that she spoke the gospel. V blinked away tears that had started to form. Not exactly tears of sadness, but a yearning? For something that V couldn’t grasp. Or were they tears of hope? Regardless, V smiled. 

“ _Gracias Hermana_.” 

* * *

Archived Conversation: V and Johnny Silverhand

V: so, what’s it like… living in cyberspace?  
Johnny: why thinking of summering here?  
V: don’t be coy asshole answer the question  
Johnny: you want to be more specific?  
V: ffs. you know what I mean. daily life. does that even exist in there?  
Johnny: thinkin’ I wake up everyday in my cyberspace bed and greet the cyberspace day? unfortunately princess, that’s not how things work here.  
V: you haven’t felt time pass at all?   
Johnny: shouldn’t you know this already? you’re the netrunner here.   
V: i’ve never been in the net for more than a day, two at most.   
Johnny: guess it’s like this — sure passage of time happens here but it doesn’t feel like out there. we all move forward but here it feels like we move slower.   
V: what so while we’re moving at the same speed i look like i’m moving farther ahead?  
Johnny: guess so more or less  
V: you ever get used to it? feeling like you’re not moving forward?  
Johnny: don’t have much of a choice.

* * *

When V was 30, she thought she was going to die. 

This time she knew it was for real.

* * *

Archived Conversation: V and Johnny Silverhand

V: i need a favor.   
Johnny: v… you sure?  
V: yes…i’m sure. please johnny.  
….  
V: johnny?  
Johnny: fuck it. fine i’ll talk to her.   
V: thank you.  
Johnny: jesus you’re stubborn you know? head like a goddamn rock  
V: thought you loved that about me?   
Johnny: don’t press your fuckin luck   
V: ;)  
Johnny: hey just don’t come blaming me if you regret this v.

* * *

A week before her birthday, V goes to the Columbarium with Misty. 

“This place gives me the creeps,” Misty said, hugging her elbows tight against her body. “Too many voices.” 

“We’ll be quick,” V said softly, as she guided Misty through. “Just need to do some housekeeping.” 

She’d been there a few times, right after Jackie died she bought him a niche. There was the _ofrend_ a, but it was nice to have a place to stand, alone with her thoughts. The other time was a year after everything. She sort of just wandered around — wondering how many people did she know here? People from her past, people from his past. She wandered in silence until she saw a name out of the corner of her eye. A vaguely familiar name that made her realize exactly why she was there in the first place. 

They stopped at Jackie’s niche first. She made sure it was on the main walkway, so no one would ever be able to forget him. “You ever visited him here before?” V asked. 

Misty bit her lip and shook her head, “I came here — once. I tried to build up the courage. Just walked around instead, trying to avoid his name.” Her fingers grazed the inscription on his niche. 

V let her have her moment. She looked around at the looming walls. Millions of memories. One day they would all be here, just another ghost. They're all ghosts in the end.

“You know,” V said as she returned to Misty’s side, “You can always visit him here. I’m sure he would love it.” She tapped the front and it slowly opened revealing a compartment. V took Jackie’s copy of _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ and gently placed it inside. She tried to read it once, but never got past the first chapter. Wasn’t much for war stories, they left a sour taste in her mouth. 

Misty nodded as V closed it back up again, her hand touching the front longer than she intended. “Come on,” V said as she removed her hand. “One last place to visit.”

The two walked deeper into the Columbarium, the monoliths towering above them. Silently, they walked straight ahead until they reached the last alcove in the center. 

V walked to the left side, her hand grazing over a memorial and then settling on an empty niche right next to it. She tapped on the empty memorial looking over to Misty. “It’s this one right here ok?” Her words hitched slightly in her throat as she looked at Misty. 

Poor Misty. V wished she didn’t have to put this burden on her. When she told her about everything, what she planned to do she simply took V’s hands in her own. She looked so serene as she said, “Let me help you,” but after four years V could see the pain and sadness behind her eyes. 

V cleared her throat, looking back at the wall, “Don’t worry about the price, I have a credchip with more than enough funds, just make sure it’s this one ok?” 

“Of course V.” 

V paused. _Shit_ , she rehearsed this so much in her mind, but the words now seemed to slip away. She breathed in deep to steady her thoughts. She looked over to the two memorials on her right, letting the words flow back to her. “Um,” she stuttered, “Write whatever inscription you want, I’m not picky. Make it something from the heart, but use my full name. My parents would have wanted that.” 

Her hand reached out, once again it traced the words of the memorial next to her. 

“And what if they refuse to give this one up V? What do you want me to do then?” Misty calmly inquired.

“Raise some hell for me,” she looked back serenely smiling. “Promise?” V held her left hand out, pinky outstretched, beckoning Misty to take it. Misty did so with her own, the two pinkies joining together.

“I Promise.” 

* * *

Archived conversation: V and [REDACTED]

[REDACTED]: You are aware that what you plan to do there is no coming back from?  
V: i’m well aware. it’s my only option. will you help me?   
[REDACTED]: I will do it, but there could be unaccounted for consequences. You may not get the results you look for. It’s been four years since I created your engram, problems may arise. Do you still wish to continue?   
V: yes.  
[REDACTED]: Very well I will make the arrangements. You know how to find me. 

* * *

When V turned 31, the sun was shining through her windows. There was a warm front coming in that caused sweat to bead on her skin and her sheets stick to her body. She woke up in a tangled mess, the salt air in Pacifica filling her lungs, giving her a sense of calm. 

Judy already skipped town again. V couldn’t find it in her heart to be upset at her — too many permanent goodbyes in Judy’s life. V made sure to leave a few things for her in her apartment if she ever returned — a goodbye note on a data shard, and a virtu to remember her by. The virtu contained her happiest day — Johnny and her on the rollercoaster in Pacifica. She wondered if Judy would be able to visually see him through her eyes as she once did on the program. Would she see the smile on their faces as they felt the wind rush by? At that moment, her thoughts of him began to shift. The joy on his face made him seem like a little kid, full of excitement. Less did he look like an infamous Night City terrorist and insufferable prick but more like an actual human being. She wanted that moment to be remembered. 

She met Panam and Misty by the beachfront. The two had set up a nice little picnic area away from the garbage that littered the sand. The three of them made a lovely day of it. They told stories, ate, waded in the water. V did her best to not show the wear she was feeling. She kept a smile plastered on her face, and tried not to laugh too hard to risk creating a bloody coughing fit.

V thought of telling Mama Welles, but she couldn’t bear the pain of it. Misty said she would tell her when the time was right. She was glad to have Misty through this. In these four years, she became like a surrogate sister to her. V would be grateful for her acts of kindness. Yet another act she wouldn't be able to pay back. 

Panam was, well Panam — all bite and bark. She was here for support; tried to keep face during the day, but V saw through the softness of her features, saw the edges that lied beneath. She was trying her best to keep her temper. V knew she did it out of love, but Panam couldn’t help butting heads with her. Some days, when the clan settled camp in the badlands, the two would spend the entire time bickering. Reminded her of simpler times, petty schoolyard rows. In the end, family was family. Fighting is what they did best. 

Panam didn’t like this idea one bit. She spent years trying to convince V to leave Night City. When V told her the plan she called it bullshit. “Just leave it all behind V! We’ll find you the help you need out there. You could have it all. You could have a new beginning.” 

“Don’t you see,” V said to her, “that’s exactly what I’m doing.” 

As the sun was setting, V stood where the water met the beach. She wanted to remember every feeling of this moment. The smell of the saltwater as it crashed against her ankles, the sand between her toes, the faint warm breeze that whipped through her hair. V wanted this to be the last thing she remembered of the real world. She wanted to remember every feeling of it in every atom of her body.

“Hey V?” Misty calmly said as her hand lightly brushed her shoulder. “You alright?” 

“Yeah,” V sighed. “Wish I had one more day. Just so I could look out at that view.” 

“You could always postpone. Does it have to be today?” 

“It does Misty. Can wish all I want for another day, but I don’t have many left. Besides, I’m tired,” V turned to look at Misty. She felt the tears welling up behind her eyes, but she willed herself not to cry. Not today. 

“Should we get started then?” Misty asked. Her hand reached down until it grasped V’s. V settled into her touch. She nodded and let Misty lead her back to where Panam was packing their picnic up. 

The three made their way to the Afterlife. Nix was there waiting to usher them into his workspace. V once boasted that she was the best netrunner in Night City, but she had to admit she was nothing compared to Nix. There was no one in the city she would trust to oversee things. V went over final arrangements one last time with both Misty and Panam, “everything needs to be by the book.” 

As V settled into the ice bath, through chattering teeth she looked up at Misty. “Remember what we talked about?” she said, with pleading eyes. 

“Of course V,” she smiled sweetly. V took off the talisman Misty once made for her, and placed it gently into Misty’s hands. She closed Misty’s hands tightly against it, held them with her own for a moment. V jacked in for the last time as the world around her faded back into a familiar space of binary and code. 

* * *

Johnny was right, time moved slower in Cyberspace. Days felt like years, years felt like eons. She still found that in cyberspace she slept. Maybe it was out of some sort of psychological need — she heard borgs did that for the same reason. The difference was that she couldn’t tell how long she had been asleep. 5 minutes and 10 hours all felt the same. 

V spent 31 years of her life moving forward, constantly running. Sometimes she moved so fast through life she thought she would combust. Felt like the only time she would slow down would be as she fell to the ground, letting her corpse billow smoke out of Night City to carry her soul away. Now V would sit, let the buzz of the Net fill her mind. She thought perhaps this is what peace was supposed to be like. 

Somehow a full year had passed since she had arrived in cyberspace. 

It came to her like a blink of an eye, and at a snail’s pace all at once.

* * *

Archived Conversation: V and Johnny

Johnny: how’s life beyond the blackwall? feel like bashing your head in yet?  
V: no, johnny. it’s going better than expected. think it’ll still take some getting used to tho.   
Johnny: no regrets?  
V: my life is one big regret. i’ll get over one thing and find six more to regret.   
Johnny: ain’t that the fucking truth.  
…  
V: do you think we’ll end up like her? one day, we’ll forget we were ever human? just two fragments of all-knowing code floating in cyberspace?  
Johnny: seems like an inevitability. don’t think alt came here expectin’ to lose herself either but look at her now.   
V: guess there isn’t such a thing as a ‘happier ending for everyone involved’, huh?  
Johnny: ‘fraid not princess. we’re born in shit, we die in shit.   
V: ’spose so. at least we have right now, right?  
Johnny: yeah. right now.

* * *

When V was 32, she sat on the edge between the Blackwall and Cyberspace and looked out at the expanse. She thought of everything she went through to end up here. She managed to get a message out to Misty. She encrypted the message to not cause too much suspicion for some rogue NetWatch agent. It took a while to get a response but V was able to get an update. It warmed her to hear about everyone, just living. It was everything she hoped for and more. Despite everything, they moved on. 

Valeria Ramos’ first love was the Net. She bought her first cybermodem with her allowance. She read everything she could about it. She lived for it and almost died for it. When V was a teenager, it was a second home to her. Now as an adult, it _is_ her home. 

She looked out at the binary landscape as a figure appeared and sat next to her. She didn’t realize she had been crying, it just flowed out of her, static pricking her cheeks. A hand grasped her own and squeezed. She looked over to the figure next to her. The hardened edges of his mouth upturned into the slightest of smiles. This time it was not full of hurt and pain but something that resembled love. If V had a real working human heart she thought it would burst.

Valeria Ramos’ second love was Johnny Silverhand. Once upon a time, they seemed to move at the same rapid-fire pace. Twin souls battling a clock, until their timelines divided. While time moved at the same pace she moved faster while he appeared to move slower. Now they sat together, stagnant, almost unmoving. Time moved at an inch's pace as she turned back to face the landscape. It could have been months, years, millennia as she looked at the world below her.

It was fine though. This was right where she wanted to be.

**Author's Note:**

> *mild game spoiler*: Did you know that if you go to the columbarium there is a memorial for Johnny there?? In case you were wondering what inspired me to get angsty as hell with this. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!!! Feel free to leave kudos/comments if you feel so inclined :)


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